Kdrama Wrapped

Because I've seen quite a few Korean dramas this year, I decided to do a Kdrama Wrapped for 2022 (like Spotify wrapped but with Kdramas). (A lady on Instagram that I follow and posts content about Kdramas suggested doing this and I liked the idea so here I go).

My Top 7 Kdramas I watched in 2022:

1. While You Were Sleeping

2. Fight For My Way

3. My Liberation Notes

4. Thirty but Seventeen/Still 17

5. Extraordinary Attorney Woo

6. Shopaholic Louis

7. Gaus Electronics

My Favorite Genres (I just guessed on this one. I didn't actually count how many of each I watched, but it's probably pretty accurate the way I ordered them):

1. Romantic Comedy

2. Fantasy/Science Fiction

3. Slice of Life

4. Action

5. Historical

My Top 6 Songs From Kdramas I Watched in 2022 (in no particular order):

1. Pray by Klang (from Angel's Last Mission: Love)

2. Sweeter by Jess Penner (from Angel's Last Mission: Love)

2. Christmas Tree by V (from Our Beloved Summer)

3. Hallucination (feat. NaShow) by Jang Jane (from Kill Me Heal Me)   

4. Let Me Out by by NU'EST W (from A Korean Odyssey)

5. Satellite by SALTNPAPER (from Chicago Typewriter)

6. Blooming Memories by Baek Ye Rin (from Chicago Typewriter)

Total Kdramas Watched in 2022

I would tell you but I don't want to be judged. 😉

 

Sometimes my brother's cat will join me on my bed as I watch Kdramas.
 

In case you couldn't tell from my previous post and from the tab on my blog of Kdramas that I've watched, I love Kdramas! If you'd ever like to start watching them, I'd be happy to give you a recommendation.

Ukraine 2

Even though the war in Ukraine is not at the top of the headlines any more, the war is still going on there. And I feel just as helpless and as heartbroken as I did at the beginning of the craziness.

I've been thinking a lot about my mission recently. This week marks 18 years since I entered the MTC. It seems sooooo crazy to me that it was that long ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday, while at other times it feels like a lifetime ago.

I decided to write another post about more people I met in Ukraine. I wanted to put faces with people who are directly affected by the war. Whether or not they still live in Ukraine, I'm not sure, but either way it's their homeland being destroyed and people they know being killed and injured and it's really really sad.

Front Row: me and Violetta; Back Row: Sister Larisa, Sasha, Kostya, Marina, Ira, and Sister E. 

We went to FHE at Sister Larisa's house sometimes and always enjoyed going there! Sister Larisa is the mom of Sasha, Kostya, and Ira in the picture. Marina was Kostya's girlfriend and Violetta was a family friend. This family was awesome! They were so kind to us and it was always fun visiting them. This was in Lugansk.

On the back of this picture I wrote that Sister Larisa and her family had a hard life. They had to choose between the Dad (Sister Larisa's husband) and all their material things or the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They chose the Gospel and the Dad was not very happy nor nice about it. He gave them a really hard time, but they stayed true to the Gospel.

Dasha and Nikita are the twin babies in the picture. Angelika is the mom. 

Angelika was someone Sister E and I taught in Lugansk. We found her while knocking on doors. 

We knocked on her door and Angelika's mom answered the door (I'll call Angelika's mom Grandma for this story). We said our little TryingToGetHerToListenToOurMessage statement but Grandma didn't want to hear what we had to say and started closing the door. Right before she finished closing the door, we asked if we could sing a song for her. 

Surprisingly, she said we could, so we sang I am a Child of God. After we finished singing, she immediately opened the door and invited us in. Grandma wasn't really interested in hearing our message but her daughter Angelika was. We learned that missionaries had been to their house before and Angelika wanted to hear more.

We taught Angelika for a few months and we enjoyed visiting her. She was one of the kindest, most sincere people I've ever met. She was married and had four children. Her husband ended up opposing her learning any more about the Gospel so, alas, we had to stop visiting her. But we did leave her the Kniga Mormona and a conference Ensign.

I hope her and her family are safe! I know she had a teenage son at the time I was there so he's fighting age now.

Sister C, Sister J, Marina, Nastya, Ira, Ilya, Sergei, Valeri, and me

Oh how I loved this family! Ira was married to Valeri and they had four children Marina, Nastya, Ilya,  and Sergei. They were such a good family who owned a little farm in the country and grew mushrooms. Sister C and I loved visiting them. This was in Donetsk.

Front Row: Ilya; Back Row: Nastya, Ira, and Marina

This is the same family as the picture above. Nastya and Marina got baptized on this day and the rest of the family got baptized a few months later (after I was done with my mission). I wish I could have been there for the baptism of the rest of the family, but I'm glad I was able to see Nastya and Marina baptized. 

Alas, I have not kept in contact with them but I do know that Marina and Nastya are both married to Ukrainian men and have children. 

This is a normal street scene near our apartment in Gorlovka. This may have been seventeen years ago, but it shows what it was like before war hit the country.

These were some kids that lived in our apartment complex in Gorlovka. They loved coming up to Sister L and I and practicing their English and just chatting with us in Russian. They were so cute!

Unfortunately I have not been very good at keeping in contact with people from my mission so I don't know how these specific people are doing now. But I hope the people that I wrote about today (and the ones I didn't write about too) are safe and are able to adjust to whatever new circumstances they might be in.

Here's the link to another post I wrote about Ukraine earlier this year. Also I hope that this war will end soon with Russia leaving Ukraine alone and the Ukrainians getting their homeland back!

My Spotify Wrap Up

It's that time of year again to look at my Spotify wrap up. I didn't know they did this until I started paying for a subscription last year, but I like it. I think it's fun to see what I listened to the most in the last year. 

I listen to music on Spotify the most out of any other way of listening to music.

My top five most listened to songs! This does not surprise me in the least. My number one song, I apparently listened to 192 times this year.

Two of the songs on my top five this year I had on my top five last year also, Imagine by Ben Platt and Husavik by Will Ferrell and My Marianne.

These are my top genres, which also does not surprise me. :)

 

 And this is how many minutes I listened to Spotify this year. I calculated it into hours and apparently it's 431.2 hours of listening!

 I just wanted to remember my statistics for this year. Here's a link to my Spotify statistics last year.

My Birthday

My birthday may or may not have been a few weeks ago. :) This year is not quite a big birthday for me but next year will be... and I am not looking forward to it.

 

My birthday this year was good though!

In case you don't know I love narwhals. I often receive narwhal related items when I get presents, which I am totally okay with! I received this awesome narwhal shirt from my sister, Lara, for my birthday. :)

 

And I got this cute narwhal card in the mail from my friend, Heather. 

 

 

I love burgers and one of my favorite burger places is Big Buns. They used to only have two locations, which were a little bit of a drive from me. They've branched out and now there's one not very far from me. Yay! 

I knew that I wanted to go there for my birthday dinner. I invited my brothers who live in the area (one of them couldn't make it) and we ate at Big Buns. It was as delicious as I remember!

 

 

I wasn't going to get a shake but my brother, Peter, saw the unicorn floaties sitting on the counter and thought I should get a unicorn shake for my birthday. So I did! 

 

It was so pretty. It was just a regular shake but it sure was picture worthy.

  

 

I celebrated my birthday over a few days. The day after my birthday, I walked around Burke Lake. It was a beautiful day!

 

 

 

 

I love Burke Lake! It's about 5 miles around the whole lake and it's beautiful!

 

 

The evening after my birthday a few of my friends, Rachel, Diana, Kate, and I had dinner at Mod Pizza. Then Rachel invited us over to her house for an Oreo cake she had made for my birthday. Everything was delicious! (I didn't get a picture from that night). 

Then the next morning, Cat, Rachel and I went to Germantown, MD to the Amish market and ate breakfast there and bought donuts for later. 

Overall I had a lovely birthday week. I got texts and calls from family and friends, I hung out with various friends and family members, and ate lots of delicious food!

Pets

Reading the news has been depressing recently (I mean it kind of always is depressing but especially recently). Although I could talk about that and maybe it would be good for me to write it out, I'm not going to right now. Instead I'm going to write a post about pets.

There were periods of time growing up that we had pets and periods of time that we didn't. When we did have pets, we mainly had cats. Now that all of my siblings and I are adults, five out of the eight of us have pets of our own; four have cats and one has dogs. 

I am one that does not have a pet and do not plan on ever getting one. I could name multiple reasons why I won't but I'm not going to get into that here. With that being said, I do like pets and think other people's pets are adorable.

With all of my traveling and staying at different family member's homes this last year or so, I've been around cats and dogs a lot. Sometimes they do cute things and I have more pictures than I'd like to admit of my siblings' pets on my phone.

So without further ado, enjoy some cute pictures of my siblings pets. :)

My sister, H, has three cats and is living with our mom. The cats are Ollie, Poppy, and Mishka.

All three of her cats love boxes. Here's Ollie!

 

 I like to call this Mishka's model pose! ;)

 

 Poppy loves sitting on Mom's lap. Anytime Mom sits down, you can guarantee that Poppy will be there soon.

 

Poppy loves boxes, whether sitting in them or on top of them. She also likes to sleep in this pose which I find funny (maybe to block the light from getting in her eyes while she's sleeping. I don't know. 🤷).

All three cats love hanging out on the stairs at the house (which kind of makes it an obstacle course to go up or down the stairs). :)

My brother, Matt and his family, have two cats, Artemis and Apollo. 

Artemis got injured awhile ago and they ended up having to have one of her legs amputated. She is doing well, though, and has adjusted to only having three legs. 

Both of their cats love to go outside.

 

I think this is Apollo, although I can't tell for sure. Artemis and Apollo look a lot alike.

I think this is Artemis.

My brother, Tim, has one cat. His name is Ash (short for Ashitaka).

 I'm currently staying with my brother, Tim, in Virginia. Occasionally, when I'm watching a Korean drama with my door open, Ash will come in and watch with me. :)

 

And my one sibling that has dogs is Lara (and her family)! Rocky and Denali. Rocky is about 15 years old and Denali is a year old.

I've dog sat for Rocky multiple times! Since Lara and her family used to live in Virginia, I dog sat for them a lot.

When he was younger, Rocky liked to chew things that he shouldn't. Now he basically just sleeps a lot and doesn't get into too much trouble. :)

Denali is a year old and is adorable! She's a very social dog and likes to be around people all of the time. She's a sweet dog.

 

Denali likes to lick. I don't like being licked, but it's hard to stop her sometimes. 

See picture below to see a different reaction to being licked by another dog.

 

Although I don't like this picture of me, I wanted to remember it. I went on a walk with one of my former co-workers recently and she brought her dog with her. I wanted a picture of us before we parted ways and we decided we wanted the dog in the picture too. So she picked up her dog and the dog immediately licked me once she got close to my face and this was my honest reaction to her licking me. C and I had a good laugh about this picture for awhile after this. 🤣

I don't have pictures of my brother, Peter's, cats. But Peter and his family have two cats, Savannah and Shadow. They're pretty cute too!

Well I know this is a random post about my siblings pets, but I just wanted to share and I thought pictures of cute animals might be an okay post. :)

Visits With Friends And Family

This year has been really hard for me personally and for my family in general. As I've already mentioned on my blog, I lost my job earlier this year. I have been looking for a new job and have had quite a few interviews. Each time I have an interview and don't get a job offer or even a second interview, I lose confidence in myself.

My dad died in July and the months leading up to his death were difficult. My dad was put on home hospice care about a month before he died, but he wasn't doing well before that too. I came to Utah in May to help my mom and sister with taking care of my dad. To say this year has been difficult is an understatement.  

Although it's been hard, there have been some good things about it too. All of my siblings were able to come to Utah to surprise my dad for Father's Day. I met my great-niece for the first time. I've been able to enjoy some outdoor scenery (going on hikes, taking scenic drives, seeing pretty sunsets, rainbows, and flowers). I've met up with some friends.

We had a family photo shoot on Father's Day. These were the last family photos (with all of my siblings and my parents) before my dad died. 

My great-niece and I. Isn't she adorable?! :) She's my first great niece or nephew and as of right now my only one.

While my dad was on hospice care, it was hard to get myself out to meet with friends or really do anything outside of my parent's house (besides going on walks nearby, running errands, and occasionally taking a scenic drive).  About a month after my dad died, I started feeling like I could meet up with friends again. 

I contacted my friend, Shari, and asked if she'd like to go on a hike. I met Shari in Virginia but she's working remotely and living in Utah now. We would occasionally go on hikes together when we were both in Virginia so it was fun to go on another one together but in a different location. We went on a lovely hike near my mom's house. 

Some pretty flowers on our hike!

One of the views on our hike!

I moved around a lot growing up. Although I only lived in Utah for two years before going to University, I made some good friends in those two years. I met up with some old high school friends not too long ago, Kasey, Amanda, Natalie, and Whitney. 

It was fun catching up with them, reminiscing about the good ol' days as well as updating them on what's going on in life now!

 

A pretty sunset I saw on a walk near my mom's house!

At my most recent job, we had an office in Virginia, but we had some remote workers too. Working in the office, I didn't have much interaction with my co-workers who worked remotely.

During the pandemic, we ended up closing down the office in Virginia and we all worked remotely. Because we were all remote, we started having a weekly zoom call to talk about any questions we had about work and then we usually ended up talking about personal things too.

Because of these weekly zoom calls, I got to know the two people who were working remotely before much better. Janice and Irene were the two remote workers and both live in Utah. I became friends with them and I met up with them for lunch recently. It was fun catching up and seeing them again.

I know Diana from Virginia. She was in town for one of her old roommate's wedding and invited me to breakfast one of the days she was here. 

Diana is one of my good friends. She's been my friend since the beginning of my time in Virginia (so over 11 years). She is awesome! It was good to see her and eat a delicious breakfast at Kneaders. 

Although this year has been really really hard, there have been some good times too. I'm grateful for my family and friends and for their love and support during this difficult year (and always).

Mirror Lake Scenic Byway

Three Sundays ago, my sister, H, and I went for a drive on the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway. We stopped at multiple overlooks along the way and saw beautiful scenery. The main place we wanted to visit on our drive was Mirror Lake. We stopped at the lake and walked around it! 

Enjoy the pictures!

A waterfall at one of the overlooks on our drive!

We arrived at Mirror Lake and walked around it. It was 30 degrees cooler at the lake than at my mom's house and it was lovely.

 

The trail around the lake was about 2 miles around, flat, and gorgeous!

Isn't it beautiful?!

H and I on our walk around the lake!

I'm glad H and I were able to go on this drive. It was really nice to get a reprieve from the heat and the scenery was beautiful!